l8o ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



an average of 280 per annum, and then employed a trained lion hunter 

 with his dogs. 17 In a campaign against rabid coyotes in two California 

 counties in 1916 by the United States Forest Service, United States 

 Biological Survey and California Board of Health, 2707 coyotes were 

 killed, while in the same period bounties were paid on I474. 18 



Bounties are particularly ineffective and wasteful in dealing with the 

 abundant rodent pests. Dixon says that, with such abundant animals, 

 if the bounty is high enough to do any good the cost is prohibitive. 

 If too low, trapping is indulged in only until their numbers are re- 

 duced to the point where it becomes unprofitable, 19 then they are al- 

 lowed to multiply until trapping again becomes profitable, which is not 

 long with such prolific animals, thus giving trappers almost continuous 

 employment and resulting in no permanent reduction in the rodent 

 population. Bell, Bailey and Barrows all comment on the inefficiency of 

 bounties in fighting such animals as ground squirrels, prairie-dogs, 

 pocket gophers, rabbits, etc. 20 Palmer says that after paying bounties on 

 jack rabbits in one county for fifteen years they were still so abundant 

 that the annual bounty expense was greater than at the beginning. 21 

 At least one very recent writer 22 has defended the bounty system for 

 the control of predacious mammals, but that does not necessarily carry 

 with it the approval of bounties on prolific rodents. 



Several other classes of laws concerning mammals are closely re- 

 lated to bounty laws, as their purpose is the control or destruction of 

 animals that may for any reason be detrimental to human interests. 

 Such, for example, are : ( i ) Laws designed to prevent the importation 

 of noxious animals of any sort and giving the Department of Agri- 

 culture jurisdiction, with power to make and enforce regulations for 

 that purpose. (2) Quarantine laws, to prevent taking diseased animals 

 from an infected area to an uninfected one. (3) Laws providing for 

 the destruction of domesticated animals afflicted with communicable 

 diseases. (4) Laws requiring the muzzling of dogs during rabies epi- 



17 Hunter, California Fish and Game, vn, 99-101, 1921. Bruce, California Fish 

 and Game, vui, 108-114, 1922; xi, 1-17, 1925. California Fish and Game, m, 120, 

 1917. 



^California Fish and Game, in, 120-121, 1917. 



w Dixon, Control of the California ground squirrel, California Agric. Exper. Sta. 

 Circular No. 181, 1917. 



20 Bell, Yearbook U. S. Dept. Agric. for 1917, pp. 225-233. Bailey, U. S. Div. 

 Ornith. and Mam. Bull. No. 4, pp. 18-24, 1893 ; No. 5, pp. 25-26, 1895. Barrows, ibid., 

 No. 3, pp. 161-162. 



21 Palmer, The jack rabbits of the United States, U. S. Biol. Surv. Bull. No 8, 

 1897. 



22 Avery, Bounties or government trappers, Field and Stream, Dec. 1930, p. 8. 



